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California Homes and Jobs Act

More than 130,000 people are homeless on any given night in California. Many others spend over 30% of their income on housing. Every day, thousands of families, veterans, former foster youth, people with disabilities and seniors struggle to obtain and maintain a roof over their heads. California needs more affordable housing. How can we help assure that we have the resources we need to create affordable housing?

This year Housing California and the California Housing Consortium, along with a diverse coalition of housing advocates, are leading an effort to adopt the California Homes and Jobs Act. What will the CA Homes and Jobs Act help achieve? The proposed bill will generate an estimated $500 million in annual revenue for direct investment in affordable homes and jobs, and leverage an additional $2.78 billion in federal, local, and private funding. How will the CA Homes and Jobs Act generate funds? The bill will place a $75 fee on the recordation of real-estate related documents — excluding home sales — and deposit these funds into a state housing trust fund. The revenue will be invested into public-private partnership programs modeled on California’s existing, successful affordable home programs.

California desperately needs a permanent, ongoing source of funding dedicated to affordable housing development! The California Homes and Jobs Act will be introduced on February 20th. Company and organizational endorsements for the bill are currently being collected. These endorsements are a powerful way to communicate support for the bill. Endorsements can be made by visiting www.californiahomesandjobsact.org.

We hope you will join us is support of this important legislation and add your organization’s name to the coalition that is being built to support this effort.